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Giant Landslide on Iapetus
| Description |
Giant Landslide on Iapetus |
| Full Description |
A spectacular landslide within the low-brightness region of Iapetus's surface known as Cassini Regio is visible in this image from Cassini. Iapetus is one of the moons of Saturn. The landslide material appears to have collapsed from a scarp 15 kilometers high (9 miles) that forms the rim of an ancient 600 kilometer (375 mile) impact basin. Unconsolidated rubble from the landslide extends halfway across a conspicuous, 120-kilometer diameter (75-mile) flat-floored impact crater that lies just inside the basin scarp. Landslides are common geological phenomena on many planetary bodies, including Earth and Mars. The appearance of this landslide on an icy satellite with low-brightness cratered terrain is reminiscent of landslide features that were observed during NASA's Galileo mission on the Jovian satellite Callisto. The fact that the Iapetus landslide traveled many kilometers from the basin scarp could indicate that the surface material is very fine-grained, and perhaps was fluffed by mechanical forces that allowed the landslide debris to flow extended distances. In this view, north is to the left of the picture and solar illumination is from the bottom of the frame. The image was obtained in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow angle camera on Dec. 31, 2004, at a distance of about 123,400 kilometers (76,677 miles) from Iapetus and at a Sun-Iapetus-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 78 degrees. Resolution achieved in the original image was 740 meters (2,428 feet) per pixel. The image has been contrast-enhanced and magnified by a factor of two to aid visibility. The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging team is based at the Space Science Institute, Boulder, Colo. For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov . For images visit the Cassini imaging team home page http://ciclops.org . Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute |
| Date |
January 7, 2005 |
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Scrutinizing Titan's Surface
| Description |
Scrutinizing Titan's Surface |
| Full Description |
The six close-up views of Titan's surface shown here are composed of images acquired by the Cassini spacecraft during flybys in October (see Titan Mosaic: October 2004) and December (see Titan Mosaic: December 2004) of 2004. These close-up views illustrate that a variety of processes have shaped the surface of Titan, just as diverse geologic processes are responsible for what we see on Earth's surface. Image (a) shows a prominent bright-dark boundary near the western edge of the Xanadu region which exhibits a sharp, angular edge between the materials. Three bright, discontinuous circles can be seen (two near the top of the image and another near the lower left). These may be large impact craters, the upper two are approximately 30 kilometers (18.6 miles) in diameter and the lower one is approximately 50 kilometers (20 miles) in diameter. Titan's thick atmosphere will screen out small projectiles, but if the surface were as old as Titan itself, it should have many more craters of these sizes. Therefore, Cassini scientists think that, like Earth's surface, Titan's surface has been modified more recently by other geologic processes. However, such processes on Titan may take much longer than on Earth, acting over hundreds of millions of years. Image (b) shows bright features that appear to be streamlined as if were they formed by winds in Titan's atmosphere moving from west to east. The landing site of the Huygens probe is in the upper left corner of this image (see Cassini's View of Titan Landing Site). Image (c) shows a bright feature surrounded by dark material. Several long, dark and narrow lines running through the bright area may be larger examples of the dark channels seen by the Huygens probe (see Mosaic of River Channel and Ridge Area on Titan). These lines are on the order of 2 kilometers (1 mile) wide, and tens of kilometers long. Image (d) shows dark material within the bright area to the west of Xanadu. The linear nature of these features suggests that they may have formed by faulting. They may be dark due to modification by other surface processes occurring on Titan, in the same way that on Earth, fault-lines can be enhanced by erosion and/or deposition of material by water and wind. Image (e) shows brightness variations in the region southeast of the Huygens landing site. The features indicated by arrows exhibit shapes that are similar to drainage patterns seen on Earth and Mars, where the source of the liquid is underground springs rather than rainfall. Image (f) shows a region near the northwestern edge of Xanadu where the boundary between the bright and dark materials is quite complicated. Here some of the bright patches appear as if they represent thin surface plates that have been broken apart and spread apart over underlying dark material. The white bars above each image are 200 kilometers (124 miles) long. Imaging Titan through its thick atmosphere is a challenge, and the narrow, straight lines within the images, are seams between individual images that have not been completely removed. North is to the top of each frame. The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging team is based at the Space Science Institute, Boulder, Colo. For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov . For additional images visit the Cassini imaging team homepage http://ciclops.org . *Credit:* NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute. |
| Date |
March 9, 2005 |
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Eyes on Iapetus!
| Description |
This map of the surface of Iapetus, generated from images taken by NASA's Cassini and Voyager spacecraft, illustrates the imaging coverage planned for Cassini's very close flyby of the two-toned moon on Sept. 10, 2007. |
| Full Description |
This map of the surface of Iapetus, generated from images taken by NASA's Cassini and Voyager spacecraft, illustrates the imaging coverage planned for Cassini's very close flyby of the two-toned moon on Sept. 10, 2007. This flyby will be Cassini's only close approach to Iapetus (1,468 kilometers, or 912 miles across) during the entire planned mission. At closest approach, Cassini will be 1,640 kilometers (1,020 miles) above the surface of Iapetus. The spacecraft will pass the moon at a speed of about 2.4 kilometers (1.5 miles) per second--a relatively leisurely pace that will allow plenty of time for the scientific instruments on board to collect massive amounts of data. Cassini's previous encounter with Iapetus, on Dec. 31, 2004, focused on the mysterious territory in Cassini Regio, the region blanketed by dark material that covers most of the moon's leading hemisphere. The upcoming encounter will be primarily concerned with terrain farther west, in the important transition region between Cassini Regio and the bright trailing hemisphere. Scientists hope to learn a great deal more about the composition of the materials that compose the surface of Iapetus during this encounter. Another area of focus is the large equatorial ridge that overlies the moon's equator (see Encountering Iapetus). The ridge reaches 20 kilometers (12 miles) high in some places and extends over 1,300 kilometers (808 miles) in length. No other moon in the solar system has a geological feature like this striking ridge. The tallest mountains on the ridge rival Olympus Mons on Mars, which is approximately three times the height of Mt. Everest. Such giant mountains are a surprising feature for such a small body as Iapetus, which is nearly five times smaller than Mars and nearly nine times smaller than Earth. Colored lines on the map enclose regions that will be covered at different imaging scales as Cassini encounters Iapetus. The highest expected resolution of Cassini images from this flyby is about 20 meters (65 feet) per pixel--significantly higher than the 2004 encounter. The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging operations center is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo. For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov . The Cassini imaging team homepage is at http://ciclops.org . *Credit:* NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute |
| Date |
September 5, 2007 |
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Leaving Earth
| title |
Leaving Earth |
| date |
06.10.2003 |
| description |
This spectacular shot of solid rocket motors separating from a Delta II rocket over Florida was captured during the June 10 liftoff of the Mars Exploration Rover, Spirit. The rover and its twin, Opportunity, will arrive at Mars in January 2004. |
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Mariner 8
| title |
Mariner 8 |
| date |
05.09.1971 |
| description |
Mariner-71H (also called Mariner-H) was the first of a pair of American spacecraft intended to explore the physical and dynamic characteristics of Mars from Martian orbit. The overall goals of the series were to search for an environment that could support life, to collect data on the origin and evolution of the planet, to gather information on planetary physics, geology, planetology, and cosmology, and to provide data that could aid future spacecraft such as the Viking Landers. Launch of Mariner-71H was nominal until just after separation of the Centaur upper stage, when a malfunction occurred in the stage's flightcontrol system, leading to loss of pitch control at an altitude of 148 kilometers at T+4.7 minutes. As a result, the stack began to tumble and the Centaur engines shut down. The stage and its payload reentered Earth's atmosphere approximately 1,500 kilometers downrange from the launch site. |
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Hubble Snaps Mars
| title |
Hubble Snaps Mars |
| date |
08.27.2003 |
| description |
NASA's Hubble Space Telescope took this close-up of the red planet Mars when it was just 55,760,220 km (34,648,840 miles) away. The picture was taken only 11 hours before Mars made its closest approach to Earth in 60,000 years. The next closest approach is in 2287. *Image Credit*: NASA |
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Venera 2
| title |
Venera 2 |
| date |
11.12.1965 |
| description |
Although the 3MV-3 and 3MV-4 type spacecraft were originally intended for Mars exploration, the Soviets re-equipped three of the series, left over from the 1964 Mars launch windows, for Venus exploration in 1965. This particular vehicle was scheduled to fly past the sunlit side of Venus at no more than a 40,000-kilometer range and take photographs. During the outbound flight, communications with the spacecraft were poor. Immediately before closest approach in late February 1966, ground control commanded to switch on all the onboard scientific instrumentation. o The closest approach to the planet was at 02:52 UT on 27 February 1966 at about a 24,000-kilometer range. After its flyby, when the spacecraft was supposed to relay back the collected information, ground control was unable to regain contact. Controllers finally gave up all attempts at communication on 4 March. Venera 2 eventually entered heliocentric orbit. Later investigation indicated that improper functioning of 40 thermal radiator elements caused a sharp increase in gas temperatures in the spacecraft. As a result, elements of the receiving and decoding units failed, the solar panels overheated, and contact was lost. Ironically, the scientific instruments may have collected valuable data, but none of it was ever transmitted back to Earth."Editor's Note: This mission profile was originally published in *Deep Space Chronicle: A Chronology of Deep Space and Planetary Probes 1958-2000*, by Asif A. Siddiqi, NASA Monographs in Aerospace History No. 24" |
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Mars Over Moon
| title |
Mars Over Moon |
| date |
07.18.2003 |
| description |
Ron Wayman of Tampa, Fla., captured this crisp picture of Mars emerging from behind the Moon with an 8-inch telescope and a digital camera. Mars was briefly occulted - hidden from view - by Earth's Moon early on July 17, 2003. *Image Credit/Copyright*: Ron Wayman, Tampa, Fla. |
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Adios Earth
| title |
Adios Earth |
| description |
Well on its way to the Red Planet, Europe's Mars Express snapped this shot of Earth from a distance of about 8 million km (5 million miles). |
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Martian Meteorite
| title |
Martian Meteorite |
| description |
NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity has found an iron meteorite, the first meteorite of any type ever identified on another planet. The pitted, basketball-size object is mostly made of iron and nickel according to readings from spectrometers on the rover. Only a small fraction of the meteorites fallen on Earth are similarly metal-rich. Others are rockier. As an example, the meteorite that blasted the famous Meteor Crater in Arizona is similar in composition. "This is a huge surprise, though maybe it shouldn't have been," said Dr. Steve Squyres of Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y., principal investigator for the science instruments on Opportunity and its twin, Spirit. The meteorite, dubbed "Heat Shield Rock," sits near debris of Opportunity's heat shield on the surface of Meridiani Planum, a cratered flatland that has been Opportunity's home since the robot landed on Mars nearly one year ago. "I never thought we would get to use our instruments on a rock from someplace other than Mars," Squyres said. "Think about where an iron meteorite comes from: a destroyed planet or planetesimal that was big enough to differentiate into a metallic core and a rocky mantle." Rover-team scientists are wondering whether some rocks that Opportunity has seen atop the ground surface are rocky meteorites. "Mars should be hit by a lot more rocky meteorites than iron meteorites," Squyres said. "We've been seeing lots of cobbles out on the plains, and this raises the possibility that some of them may in fact be meteorites. We may be investigating some of those in coming weeks. The key is not what we'll learn about meteorites -- we have lots of meteorites on Earth -- but what the meteorites can tell us about Meridiani Planum." The numbers of exposed meteorites could be an indication of whether the plain is gradually eroding away or being built up. NASA Chief Scientist Dr. Jim Garvin said, "Exploring meteorites is a vital part of NASA's scientific agenda, and discovering whether there are storehouses of them on Mars opens new research possibilities, including further incentives for robotic and then human-based sample-return missions. Mars continues to provide unexpected science 'gold,' and our rovers have proven the value of mobile exploration with this latest finding." Initial observation of Heat Shield Rock from a distance with Opportunity's miniature thermal emission spectrometer suggested a metallic composition and raised speculation last week that it was a meteorite. The rover drove close enough to use its Moessbauer and alpha particle X-ray spectrometers, confirming the meteorite identification over the weekend. Opportunity and Spirit successfully completed their primary three-month missions on Mars in April 2004. NASA has extended their missions twice because the rovers have remained in good condition to continue exploring Mars longer than anticipated. They have found geological evidence of past wet environmental conditions that might have, been hospitable to life. Opportunity has driven a total of 2.10 kilometers (1.30 miles). Minor mottling from dust has appeared in images from the rover's rear hazard-identification camera since Opportunity entered the area of its heat-shield debris, said Jim Erickson of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., rover project manager. The rover team plans to begin driving Opportunity south toward a circular feature called "Vostok" within about a week. Spirit has driven a total of 4.05 kilometers (2.52 miles). It has been making slow progress uphill toward a ridge on "Husband Hill" inside Gusev Crater. *Image Credit*: NASA |
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Mariner Images of Mars
| title |
Mariner Images of Mars |
| description |
These wide-angle images of Mars were laid in place on a globe already containing an indistinct, Earth-based view of Mars. The Mariner 6 pictures make two horizontal rows above, the Mariner 7 pictures extend from center to bottom right and across the south polar cap. The Visual Imaging Investigation (TV experiment) for Mariner 6 and 7 used two cameras on each spacecraft, in order to obtain both broad coverage and high resolution. Camera A, with a wide-angle lens, showed large areas of the planet, 1000 x 1000 kilometers and details as small as 3,000 meters during near encounter. Camera B, with a telephoto lens, showed 100 x 100 kilometer areas and details as small as 300 meters. The cameras operated alternately, with each one taking a picture every 84 seconds. *Image Credit*: Jet Propulsion Laboratory |
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New Mars Meteorite
| title |
New Mars Meteorite |
| description |
Scientists believe this small rock - NWA 1669 - was blasted from Mars to the Earth several million or even billions of years ago. Discovered in North Africa, it is one of only 27 known Mars meteorites. *Image Copyright*: Bruno Fectau and Carine Bidaut) |
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Pathfinder Panorama
| title |
Pathfinder Panorama |
| description |
This is a more recent 'geometrically improved, color enhanced' version of the 360-degree 'Gallery Pan', the first contiguous, uniform panorama taken by the Imager for Mars (IMP) over the course of Sols 8, 9, and 10. Different regions were imaged at different times over the three Martian days to acquire consistent lighting and shadow conditions for all areas of the panorama. In this version of the panorama, much of the discontinuity that was due to parallax has been corrected, particularly along thelower tiers of the mosaic containing the Lander features. Distortiondue to a 2.5 degree tilt in the IMP camera mast has been removed. The IMP is a stereo imaging system that, in its fully deployed configuration, stands 1.8 meters above the Martian surface, and has a resolution of two millimeters at a range of two meters. The IMP has color capability provided by 24 selectable filters -- twelve filters per 'eye'. Its red, green, and blue filters were used to take this panorama. The three color images were first digitally balanced according to the transmittance capabilities of a specific high-definition TV device at JPL, and then enhanced via changes to saturation and intensity while retaining the hue. A threshold was applied to avoid changes to the sky. An MTF filter was applied to sharpen feature edges. At left is a Lander petal and a metallic mast which is a portion of the low-gain antenna. On the horizon the double 'Twin Peaks' are visible, about 1-2 kilometers away. The rock 'Couch' is the dark, curved rock at right of Twin Peaks. Another Lander petal is at left-center, showing the fully deployed forward ramp at far left, and rear ramp at right, which rover Sojourner used to descend to the surface of Mars on July 5. Immediately to the left of the rear ramp is the rock 'Barnacle Bill', which scientistsfound be andesitic, possibly indicating that it is a volcanic rock (a true andesite) or a physical mixture of particles. Just beyond Barnacle Bill, rover tracks lead to Sojourner, shown using its Alpha ProtonX-Ray Spectrometer (APXS) instrument to study the large rock 'Yogi'. Yogi, low in quartz content, appears to be more primitive than Barnacle Bill, and appears more like the common basalts found on Earth. The tracks and circular pattern in the soil leading up to Yogi werepart of Sojourner's soil mechanics experiments, in which varying amounts of pressure were applied to the wheels in order to determine physical properties of the soil. During its traverse to Yogi the roverstirred the soil and exposed material from several centimeters indepth. During one of the turns to deploy Sojourner's Alpha Proton X-Ray Spectrometer, the wheels dug particularly deeply and exposed white material. Spectra of this white material show it is virtually identical to the rock 'Scooby Doo', and such white material may underlie much of the site. Deflated airbags are visible at the perimeter of all three Lander petals. Mars Pathfinder was the second in NASA's Discovery, program of low-costspacecraft with highly focused science goals. The Jet PropulsionLaboratory, Pasadena, CA, developed and manages the Mars Pathfindermission for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, D.C. JPL is anoperating division of the California Institute of Technology (Caltech).The IMP was developed by the University of Arizona Lunar and PlanetaryLaboratory under contract to JPL. Peter Smith is the Principal Investigator. *Image Credit*: NASA |
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Mars Rover Panorama Shows Vi
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| title |
Mars Rover Panorama Shows Vista From 'Lookout' Point |
| date |
04.29.2005 |
| description |
From a ridgeline vantage point overlooking slopes, valleys and plains, NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Spirit has returned its latest color panorama of the martian landscape. The approximately true color image shows a full 360-degree view from a site informally named "Larry's Lookout," about halfway up "Husband Hill." Dr. Jim Bell of Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y., lead scientist for the panoramic cameras on both the Spirit and Opportunity Mars rovers, said, "Spirit and the rover team worked hard over many weeks to get to this vantage point along the flanks of Husband Hill. The rugged ridge and valley terrain seen here is similar in some respects to the view seen months earlier at the 'West Spur,' but the chemistry and mineralogy here are significantly different. Specifically, some of the areas seen here amid the outcrop rocks and in places where the subsurface was exposed by the rover wheels contain the highest sulfur abundances ever measured by Spirit." The view includes the summit of Husband Hill about 200 meters (about 660 feet) southward and about 45 meters (about 150 feet) higher. As Spirit continues uphill, scientists are looking for evidence about whether the intensity of water- related alteration increases with elevation or whether there are pockets of more heavily altered rocks and soils scattered throughout the hills. Spirit's panoramic camera took more than 300 individual frames between Feb. 27 and March 2 that are combined into the big picture. Downloading the frames to Earth took several weeks, and processing took additional time. Imaging specialists at Cornell and at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., calibrated the color and assembled the image. Spirit and its twin, Opportunity, successfully completed three-month primary missions a year ago. In extended missions since then, they have been exploring at increasing distances from their landing sites. JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages NASA's Mars Exploration Rover project for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. Spirit's "Lookout" panorama is also available online at http://www.nasa.gov/vision/universe/solarsystem/mer_main.html [ http://www.nasa.gov/vision/universe/solarsystem/mer_main.html ]and http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov [ http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/ ] . |
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Sedna's Orbit
| title |
Sedna's Orbit |
| description |
These four panels show the location of the newly discovered planet-like object, dubbed "Sedna," which lies in the farthest reaches of our Solar System. Each panel, moving counterclockwise from the upper left, successively zooms out to place Sedna in context. The first panel shows the orbits of the inner planets, including Earth, and the asteroid belt that lies between Mars and Jupiter. In the second panel, Sedna is shown well outside the orbits of the outer planets and the more distant Kuiper Belt objects. Sedna's full orbit is illustrated in the third panel along with the object's current location. Sedna is nearing its closest approach to the Sun, its 10,000-year orbit typically takes it to far greater distances. The final panel zooms out much farther, showing that even this large elliptical orbit falls inside what was previously thought to be the inner edge of the Oort cloud. The Oort cloud is a spherical distribution of cold, icy bodies lying at the limits of the Sun's gravitational pull. Sedna's presence suggests that this Oort cloud is much closer than scientists believed. *Image Credit*: NASA/JPL-Caltech/R. Hurt (SSC-Caltech) |
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The Plane of the Ecliptic
| title |
The Plane of the Ecliptic |
| description |
The Plane of the Ecliptic is illustrated in this Clementine star tracker camera image which reveals (from right to left) the Moon lit by Earthshine, the Sun's corona rising over the Moon's dark limb, and the planets Saturn, Mars, and Mercury. The ecliptic plane is defined as the imaginary plane containing the Earth's orbit around the Sun. In the course of a year, the Sun's apparent path through the sky lies in this plane. The planetary bodies of our solar system all tend to lie near this plane, since they were formed from the Sun's spinning, flattened, proto-planetary disk. The snapshot above nicely captures a momentary line-up looking out along this fundamental plane of our solar system. *Image Credit*: NASA |
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Earth From Mars
| title |
Earth From Mars |
| date |
03.08.2004 |
| description |
This is the first image ever taken of Earth from the surface of a planet beyond the Moon. It was taken by the Mars Exploration Rover Spirit one hour before sunrise on the 63rd Martian day, or sol, of its mission. The image is a mosaic of images taken by the rover's navigation camera showing a broad view of the sky, and an image taken by the rover's panoramic camera of Earth. The contrast in the panoramic camera image was increased two times to make Earth easier to see.The inset shows a combination of four panoramic camera images zoomed in on Earth. The arrow points to Earth. Earth was too faint to be detected in images taken with the panoramic camera's color filters. *Image Credit*: NASA/JPL/Cornell/Texas A&M |
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Terrestrial Planet Interiors
| title |
Terrestrial Planet Interiors |
| description |
*Mercury* Mercury has an average density of 5430 kilograms per cubic meter, which is second only to Earth among all the planets. It is estimated that the planet Mercury, like Earth, has a ferrous core with a size equivalent to two-thirds to three-fourths that of the planet's overall radius. The core is believed to be composed of an iron-nickel alloy covered by a mantle and surface crust. *Venus* It is believed that the composition of the planet Venus is similar to that of Earth. The planet crust extends to around 10-30 kilometers below the surface, under which the mantle reaches to a depth of some 3000 kilometers. The planet core comprises a liquid iron-nickel alloy. Average planet density is 5240 kilograms per cubic meter. *Earth* The Earth comprises three separate layers: a crust, a mantle, and a core (in descending order from the surface). The crust thickness averages 30 kilometers for land masses and 5 kilometers for seabeds. The mantle extends from just below the crust to some 2900 kilometers deep. The core below the mantle begins at a depth of around 5100 kilometers, and comprises an outer core (liquid iron-nickel alloy) and inner core (solid iron-nickel alloy). The crust is composed mainly of granite in the case of land masses and basalt in the case of seabeds. The mantle is composed primarily of peridotite and high-pressure minerals. Average planet density is 5520 kilograms per cubic meter. *Mars* Mars is roughly one-half the diameter of Earth. Due to its small size, it is believed that the martian center has cooled. Geological structure is mainly rock and metal. The mantle below the crust comprises iron-oxide-rich silicate. The core is made up of an iron-nickel alloy and iron sulfide. Average planet density is 3930 kilograms per cubic meter. *Pluto* The structure of Pluto is not very well understood at present. Nevertheless, spectroscopic observation from Earth in the 1970s has revealed that the planet surface is covered with methane ice. Surface temperature is -230?C (-382?F), and the frozen methane exhibits a bright coloration. However, with the exception of the polar caps, the frozen methane surface is seen to change to a dark red when eclipsed by its moon Charon. Average planet density is 2060 kilograms per cubic meter. The low average density requires that the planet must be a mix of ice and rock. *Image Credit*: Lunar and Planetary Institute |
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Viking I Spacecraft in Clean
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| title |
Viking I Spacecraft in Cleanroom |
| description |
The planetary landing spacecraft Viking, which includes stereo cameras, a weather station, an automated stereo analysis laboratory and a biology instrument that can detect life, under assembly at Martin Marietta Aerospace near Denver, Colorado. This Viking spacecraft will travel more than 460 million miles from Earth to a soft landing on Mars in 1976 to explore the surface and atmosphere of the red planet. Martin Marietta is prime and integration contractor for the Viking mission to NASA's Langley Research Center, Hampton, Virginia. The lander will be powered by two nuclear generators. *Image Credit*: NASA |
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Icy Mars
| title |
Icy Mars |
| date |
05.18.1979 |
| description |
This high resolution photo of the surface of Mars was taken by Viking Lander 2 at its Utopia Planitia landing site on May 18, 1979, and relayed to Earth by Orbiter 1 on June 7th. It shows a thin coating of water ice on the rocks and soil. The time of the frost appearance corresponds almost exactly with the build up of frost one Martian year (23 Earth Months) ago. *Image Credit*: NASA |
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Terrestrial Planet Sizes
| title |
Terrestrial Planet Sizes |
| description |
The terrestrial planets are the four innermost planets in the solar system, Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars. They are called terrestrial because they have a compact, rocky surface like the Earth's. The planets Venus, Earth, and Mars have significant atmospheres, while Mercury has almost none. This diagram shows the approximate relative sizes of the terrestrial planets. Distances are not to scale. *Image Credit*: Lunar and Planetary Institute |
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Moons of the Solar System
| title |
Moons of the Solar System |
| description |
All the planetary moons in our solar system are shown here at their correct relative size and true color. Their diversity of size and appearance is testament to the unique and fascinating geologic history that each of these bodies has undergone. Two of the moons are larger than the planet Mercury, and eight of them are larger than Pluto. Earth's Moon is the fifth largest of the set, with a diameter of 3476 kilometers (2160 miles). Most of the moons are thought to have formed from a disk of debris left over from formation of the planet they orbit. However Triton, Neptune's largest moon, and several of the smallest moons, including the moons of Mars, are thought to be captured planetesimals that formed elsewhere in the solar system. Earth's Moon is thought to have formed from the debris ejected from a roughly Mars-sized object colliding with the early Earth, perhaps a unique event in the history of the solar system. The moons are organized on the diagram by the planet they orbit (top to bottom with increasing distance from the Sun) and their position relative to the planet (left to right with increasing distance from the planet). Below is a listing of the names of all the moons and the planets they orbit. Most moons are named for mythological characters associated with the character the planet is named for. While most of the planets are named for Roman characters (with the exceptions of Pluto and Uranus), most of the moon have names from Greek mythology. For example, Phobos and Deimos are the sons of Ares, the Greek version of Mars. Jupiter?s moons are all named for lovers and other close associates of Zeus (Jupiter). Saturn?s moons are named for Titans, the race that included Cronos (Saturn), Zeus? father. Neptune?s moons are named for mythological characters associated with water, and Charon was the ferryman of the dead who brought people to Pluto?s realm. By tradition, the discoverer of a moon gets to name it (now subject to approval by the International Astronomical Union). The son of the discoverer of the first two moons of Uranus (Sir William Herschel) decided to name Uranus? moons not for mythological characters, but instead for the king and queen of fairies in Shakespear?s A Midsummer Night?s Dream . This began a tradition whereby all uranian satellites are named for fairy characters in English drama. To read more about the names of the planets and their satellites, go to the U.S. Geological Survey?s nomenclature guide at http://wwwflag.wr.usgs.gov/USGSFlag/Space/nomen/append7.html . *Earth* Moon *Mars * Phobos, Deimos *Jupiter* Metis, Adrastea, Amalthea, Thebe, Io, Europa, Ganymede, Callisto, Leda, Himalia, Lysithea, Elara, Ananke, Carme, Pasiphae, Sinope *Saturn * Pan, Atlas, Prometheus, Pandora, Epimetheus, Janus, Mimas, Enceladus, Tethys, Calypso, Telesto, Dione, Helene, Rhea, Titan, Hyperion, Iapetus, Phoebe *Uranus * Cordelia, Ophelia, Bianca, Cressida, Desdemona, Juliet, Portia, Rosalind, Belinda, Puck, Miranda,, Ariel, Umbriel, Titania, Oberon *Neptune* Naiad, Thalassa, Despina, Galatea, Larissa, Proteus, Triton, Nereid *Pluto * Charon *Image Credit*: Image processing by Tim Parker (Jet Propulsion Laboratory) and Paul Schenk and Robert Herrick (Lunar and Planetary Institute), based on NASA images. |
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A Piece of the Asteroid Vest
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| title |
A Piece of the Asteroid Vesta |
| description |
This meteorite is a sample of the crust of the asteroid Vesta, which is only the third solar system object beyond Earth where scientists have a laboratory sample (the other extraterrestrial samples are from Mars and the Moon). The meteorite is unique because it is made almost entirely of the mineral pyroxene, common in lava flows. The meteorite's mineral grain structure also indicates it was once molten, and its oxygen isotopes are unlike oxygen isotopes found for all other rocks of the Earth and Moon. The meteorite's chemical identity points to the asteroid Vesta because it has the same unique spectral signature of the mineral pyroxene. The meteorite also has the same pyroxene signature as other small asteroids, recently discovered near Vesta, that are considered "chips" blasted off Vesta's surface. This debris extends all the way to an "escape hatch" region in the asteroid belt called the Kirkwood gap. This region is swept free of asteroids because Jupiter's gravitational pull removes material from the main belt and hurls it onto a new orbit that crosses Earth's path around the Sun. The meteorite probably followed this route to Earth. It was torn off Vesta's surface as part of a larger fragment. Subsequent collisions broke apart the parent fragment and threw pieces toward the Kirkwood gap and onto a collision course toward Earth. The fragment's journey ended in 1960 when it fell in Western Australia. NASA's Hubble Space Telescope observations further confirm this scenario by revealing a giant impact basin on the 325-mile (525 km) diameter asteroid. The ancient impact was so powerful, it tore off a piece of the asteroid's crust, exposing a deeper mantle of rock. Most of the identified meteorites from Vesta are in the care of the Western Australian Museum. This 1.4 pound (631 gm) specimen comes from the New England Meteoritical Services. It is a complete specimen measuring 3.7 inch x 3.1 inch x 3.4 inch (9.6 cm x 8.1 cm x 8.7 cm) showing the fusion crust, evidence of the last stage in its journey to Earth. *Image Credit*: R. Kempton (New England Meteoritical Services) |
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Mars: Closest Encounter
| title |
Mars: Closest Encounter |
| description |
These two images, taken 11 hours apart with NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, reveal two nearly opposite sides of Mars. Hubble snapped these photos as the red planet was making its closest approach to Earth in almost 60,000 years. Mars completed nearly one half a rotation between the two observations. *Image Credit*: NASA, J. Bell (Cornell U.) and M. Wolff (SSI) Additional image processing and analysis support from: K. Noll and A. Lubenow (STScI), M. Hubbard (Cornell U.), R. Morris (NASA/JSC), P. James (U. Toledo), S. Lee (U. Colorado), and T. Clancy, B. Whitney and G. Videen (SSI), and Y. Shkuratov (Kharkov U.) |
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Solar System Family Portrait
| title |
Solar System Family Portrait |
| description |
These six narrow-angle color images were made from the first ever 'portrait' of the solar system taken by Voyager 1, which was more than 4 billion miles from Earth and about 32 degrees above the ecliptic. The spacecraft acquired a total of 60 frames for a mosaic of the solar system which shows six of the planets. Mercury is too close to the sun to be seen. Mars was not detectable by the Voyager cameras due to scattered sunlight in the optics, and Pluto was not included in the mosaic because of its small size and distance from the sun. These blown-up images, left to right and top to bottom are Venus, Earth, Jupiter, and Saturn, Uranus, Neptune. The background features in the images are artifacts resulting from the magnification. The images were taken through three color filters -- violet, blue and green -- and recombined to produce the color images. Jupiter and Saturn were resolved by the camera but Uranus and Neptune appear larger than they really are because of image smear due to spacecraft motion during the long (15 second) exposure times. Earth appears to be in a band of light because it coincidentally lies right in the center of the scattered light rays resulting from taking the image so close to the sun. Earth was a crescent only 0.12 pixels in size. Venus was 0.11 pixel in diameter. The planetary images were taken with the narrow-angle camera (1500 mm focal length). *Image Note*: This 'Portrait' contains 18 frames taken through the Narrow Angle camera using the Violet, Blue, and Green Filters. The label information describes only 3 of these frames. *Image Credit*: NASA |
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Mars 1
| title |
Mars 1 |
| date |
11.01.1962 |
| description |
Mars 1 was an automatic interplanetary station launched in the direction of Mars, with the intent of flying by the planet at a distance of about 11,000 km. It was designed to image the surface and send back data on cosmic radiation, micrometeoroid impacts and Mars' magnetic field, radiation environment, atmospheric structure, and possible organic compounds. After leaving Earth orbit, the spacecraft and the booster fourth stage separated and the solar panels were deployed. Early telemetry indicated that there was a leak in one of the gas valves in the orientation system so the spacecraft was transferred to gyroscopic stabilization. Sixty-one radio transmissions were held, initially at two day intervals and later at 5 days in which a large amount of interplanetary data were collected. On 21 March 1963, when the spacecraft was at a distance of 106,760,000 km from Earth on its way to Mars communications ceased, probably due to failure of the spacecraft orientation system. Mars 1 closest approach to Mars occurred on 19 June 1963 at a distance of approximately 193,000 km, after which the spacecraft entered a heliocentric orbit. *Image Credit*: NASA |
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Salmon Sky
| title |
Salmon Sky |
| description |
The boulder-strewn field of red rocks reaches to the horizon nearly two miles from Viking 2 on Mars' Utopian Plain. Scientists believe the colors of the Martian surface and sky inthis photo represent their true colors. Fine particles of red dust have settled on spacecraft surfaces. The salmon color of the sky is caused by dust particles suspended in the atmosphere. Color calibration charts for the cameras are mounted at three locations on the spacecraft. Note the blue starfield and redstripes of the flag. The circular structure at top is the high-gain antenna, pointed toward Earth. Viking 2 landed September 3, 1976 - about 4,600 miles from its twin, Viking 1, which touched down on July 20. *Image Credit*: NASA |
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Mariner 4
| title |
Mariner 4 |
| description |
An illustration of NASA's Mariner 4 spacecraft, the first successful mission to Mars. Mariner 4 was launched November 28, 1964 on a 228-day mission to Mars. The spacecraft carried instruments for eight interplanetary and planetary experiments including a TV camera. Mariner 4 passed Mars at a distance of 9,868 kilometers (6,118 miles), recording and transmitting to Earth our first close-up picture of the red planet. In 21 and a fraction of a 22nd picture, Mariner's TV camera scanned about one percent of the Martian surface, revealing ancient craters of varying size. Planetary science data, including pictures, were trasmitted over distances ranging from 215 million to 240 kilometers (134 million to 150 million miles). *Image Credit*: NASA |
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Opportunity's Second Martian
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| title |
Opportunity's Second Martian Birthday at Cape Verde |
| date |
10.20.2007 |
| description |
A promontory nicknamed "Cape Verde" can be seen jutting out from the walls of Victoria Crater in this approximate true-color picture taken by the panoramic camera on NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity. The rover took this picture on martian day, or sol, 1329 (Oct. 20, 2007), more than a month after it began descending down the crater walls - and just 9 sols shy of its second Martian birthday on sol 1338 (Oct. 29, 2007). Opportunity landed on the Red Planet on Jan. 25, 2004. That's nearly four years ago on Earth, but only two on Mars because Mars takes longer to travel around the sun than Earth. One Martian year equals 687 Earth days. The overall soft quality of the image, and the "haze" seen in the lower right portion, are the result of scattered light from dust on the front sapphire window of the rover's camera. This view was taken using three panoramic-camera filters, admitting light with wavelengths centered at 750 nanometers (near infrared), 530 nanometers (green) and 430 nanometers (violet). Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Cornell |
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Zond 3
| title |
Zond 3 |
| date |
07.18.1965 |
| description |
Zond 3 was launched from a Tyazheliy Sputnik (65-056B) earth orbiting platform towards the moon and interplanetary space. The spacecraft was equipped with an f106 mm camera and TV system that provided automatic inflight film processing. On July 20 lunar flyby occurred approximately 33 hours after launch at a closest approach of 9200 km. 25 pictures of very good quality were taken of the lunar farside from distances of 11,570 to 9960 km over a period of 68 minutes. The photos covered 19,000,000 square km of the lunar surface. Photo transmissions by facsimile were returned to earth from a distance of 2,200,000 km and were retransmitted from a distance of 31,500,000 km (some signals still being transmitted from the distance of the orbit of Mars), thus proving the ability of the communications system. After the lunar flyby, Zond 3 continued space exploration in a heliocentric orbit. The spacecraft design was similar to Zond 2, in addition to the imaging equipment it carried a magnetometer, ultraviolet (0.25 - 0.35 micron and 0.19 - 0.27 micron) and infrared (3 - 4 micron) spectrographs, radiation sensors (gas-discharge and scintillation counters), a radiotelescope and a micrometeoroid instrument. It also had an experimental ion engine. It is believed that Zond 3 was initially designed as a companion spacecraft to Zond 2 to be launched to Mars during the 1964 launch window. The opportunity to launch was missed, and the spacecraft was launched on a Mars trajectory, although Mars was no longer attainable, as a spacecraft test. *Image Credit*: NASA |
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Zond 2
| title |
Zond 2 |
| description |
Zond 2 was an automatic interplanetary station launched from a Tyazheliy Sputnik (64-078A) in Earth parking orbit towards Mars to test space-borne systems and to carry out scientific investigations. The probe carried a descent craft and the same instruments as the Mars 1 flyby spacecraft: a magnetometer probe, television photographic equipment, a spectroreflectometer, radiation sensors (gas-discharge and scintillation counters), a spectrograph to study ozone absorption bands, and a micrometeoroid instrument. The spacecraft had six experimental low-thrust electrojet plasma ion engines that served as actuators of the attitude control system and could be used instead of the gas engines to maintain orientation. Power was provided by two solar panels. Mission Profile Zond 2 took a long curving trajectory towards Mars to minimize the relative velocity. The electronic ion engines were successfully tested shortly after launch under real space environment conditions over the period December 8-18, 1964. One of the two solar panels failed so only half the anticipated power was available to the spacecraft. After a mid-course maneuver, communications with the spacecraft were lost in early May, 1965. The spacecraft flew by Mars on 6 August 1965 at a distance of 1500 km and a relative speed of 5.62 km/s. *Image Credit*: NASA |
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Mariner 4
| title |
Mariner 4 |
| date |
11.28.1964 |
| description |
Mariner 4 was the fourth in a series of spacecraft used for planetary exploration in a flyby mode and represented the first successful flyby of the planet Mars, returning the first pictures of the martian surface. It was designed to conduct closeup scientific observations of Mars and to transmit these observations to earth. Other mission objectives were to perform field and particle measurements in interplanetary space in the vicinity of Mars and to provide experience in and knowledge of the engineering capabilities for interplanetary flights of long duration. *Image Credit*: NASA |
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CRISM Views Phobos and Deimo
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| title |
CRISM Views Phobos and Deimos |
| date |
10.22.2007 |
| description |
Phobos' surface contains a second material, grayer-colored ejecta from a 9-kilometer (5.6-mile) diameter crater. This crater, called Stickney, is located at the upper left limb of Phobos and the grayer-colored ejecta extends toward the lower right. These CRISM measurements are the first spectral measurements to resolve the disk of Deimos, and the first of this part of Phobos to cover the full wavelength range needed to assess the presence of iron-, water-, and carbon-containing minerals. The Compact Reconnaissance Imaging Spectrometer for Mars (CRISM) is one of six science instruments on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. Led by The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, the CRISM team includes expertise from universities, government agencies and small businesses in the United States and abroad. Credit: NASA/JPL/JHUAPL, These two images taken by the Compact Reconnaissance Imaging Spectrometer for Mars (CRISM) show Mars' two small moons, Phobos and Deimos, as seen from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter's low orbit around Mars. Both images were taken while the spacecraft was over Mars' night side, with the spacecraft turned off its normal nadir-viewing geometry to glimpse the moons. The image of Phobos, shown at the top, was taken at 0119 UTC on October 23 (9:19 p.m. EDT on Oct. 22), and shows features as small as 400 meters (1,320 feet) across. The image of Deimos, shown at the bottom, was taken at 2016 UTC (12:16 p.m. EDT) on June 7, 2007, and shows features as small as 1.3 kilometers (0.8 miles) across. Both CRISM images were taken in 544 colors covering 0.36-3.92 micrometers, and are displayed at twice the size in the original data for viewing purposes. Phobos and Deimos are about 21 and 12 kilometers (13.0 and 7.5 miles) in diameter and orbit Mars with periods of 7 hours, 39.2 minutes and 1 day, 6 hours, 17.9 minutes respectively. Because Phobos orbits Mars in a shorter time than Mars' 24 hour, 37.4-minute rotational period, to an observer on Mars' surface it would appear to rise in the west and set in the east. From Mars' surface, Phobos appears about one-third the diameter of the Moon from Earth, whereas Deimos appears as a bright star. The moons were discovered in 1877 by the astronomer Asaph Hall, and as satellites of a planet named for the Roman god of war, they were named for Greek mythological figures that personify fear and terror. The first spacecraft measurements of Phobos and Deimos, from the Mariner 9 and Viking Orbiter spacecraft, showed that both moons have dark surfaces reflecting only 5 to 7% of the sunlight that falls on them. The first reconstruction of the moons' spectrum of reflected sunlight was a difficult compilation from three different instruments, and appeared to show a flat, grayish spectrum resembling carbonaceous chondrite meteorites. Carbonaceous chondrites are primitive carbon-containing materials thought to originate in the outer part of the asteroid belt. This led to a commonly held view among planetary scientists that Mars' moons are primitive asteroids captured into Martian orbit early in the planet's history. More recent measurements have shown that the moons are in fact relatively red in their color, and resemble even more primitive D-type asteroids in the outer solar system. Those ultra-primitive bodies are also thought to contain carbon as well as water ice, but to have experienced even less geochemical processing than many carbonaceous chondrites. The version of the CRISM images shown here were constructed by displaying 0.90, 0.70, and 0.50 micrometer wavelengths in the red, green, and blue image planes. This is a broader range of colors than is visible to the human eye, but it accentuates color differences. Both moons are shown with colors scaled in the same way. Deimos is red-colored like most of Phobos. However, |
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Columbia Memorial
| title |
Columbia Memorial |
| date |
01.06.2004 |
| description |
The landing site of the Mars Spirit rover in honor of the astronauts who died in the tragic accident of the Space Shuttle Columbia in February. The area in the vast flatland of the Gusev Crater where Spirit landed this weekend will be called the Columbia Memorial Station. Since its historic landing, Spirit has been sending extraordinary images of its new surroundings on the red planet over the past few days. Among them, an image of a memorial plaque placed on the spacecraft to Columbia's astronauts and the STS-107 mission. The plaque is mounted on the back of Spirit's high-gain antenna, a disc-shaped tool used for communicating directly with Earth. The plaque is aluminum and approximately six inches in diameter. The memorial plaque was attached March 28, 2003, at the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility at NASA's Kennedy Space Center, Fla. Chris Voorhees and Peter Illsley, Mars Exploration Rover engineers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., designed the plaque. *Image Credit*: NASA |
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Olympus Mons, 1998
| title |
Olympus Mons, 1998 |
| date |
04.25.1998 |
| description |
Olympus Mons is a mountain of mystery. Taller than three Mount Everests and about as wide as the entire Hawaiian Island chain, this giant volcano is nearly as flat as a pancake. That is, its flanks typically only slope 20 to 50. The Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC) obtained this spectacular wide-angle view of Olympus Mons on Mars Global Surveyor's 263rd orbit, around 10:40 p.m. PDT on April 25, 1998. In the view presented here, north is to the left and east is up. The spacecraft was traveling from north to south (left to right). Although the camera looks straight down (towards the nadir) and cannot be pointed to the side, the wide angle camera has such a large field of view (it sees from horizon to horizon) that, in effect, it provides side looking views. Unlike some other MOC images, that have had to be warped to provide a view as if seen from a certain direction and altitude, this image shows what the camera saw without additional processing. It is easy to imagine that you are looking out a window at the surface of Mars from about 900 km (560 miles) up. The image was taken on a cool, crisp winter morning. The west side of the volcano (lower portion of view, above) was clear and details on the surface appear very sharp. The skies above the plains to the east of Olympus Mons (upper portion of view) were cloudy. Clouds were lapping against the lower east flanks of this 26 kilometers (16 miles) high volcano, but the summit skies were clear. When Mars Global Surveyor attains its Mapping Orbit in March 1999, the MOC wide angle camera system will be used to make daily, global maps of martian clouds and weather systems. The wide angle images will resemble weather satellite pictures of Earth, and will help the Mars science teams plan their observations and test computer-driven Mars weather prediction models. Malin Space Science Systems and the California Institute of Technology built the MOC using spare hardware from the Mars Observer mission. MSSS operates the camera from its facilities in San Diego, CA. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory's Mars Surveyor Operations Project operates the Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft with its industrial partner, Lockheed Martin Astronautics, from facilities in Pasadena, CA and Denver, CO. Image Note: This color picture was made using MOC red wide angle image 26301 and blue wide angle image 26302. The green channel was synthesized by averaging the red and blue bands. Color is not the true color of Mars as it would appear to the human eye (the actual colors would be more pale and contrast more subdued) *Image Credit*: NASA/JPL/Malin Space Science Systems |
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Improved MPF 360-degree Colo
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| title |
Improved MPF 360-degree Color Panorama |
| description |
This is a more recent "geometrically improved, color enhanced" version of the 360-degree "Gallery Pan", the first contiguous, uniform panorama taken by the Imager for Mars (IMP) over the course of Sols 8, 9, and 10. Different regions were imaged at different times over the three Martian days to acquire consistent lighting and shadow conditions for all areas of the panorama. In this version of the panorama, much of the discontinuity that was due to parallax has been corrected, particularly along the lower tiers of the mosaic containing the Lander features. Distortion due to a 2.5 degree tilt in the IMP camera mast has been removed. The IMP is a stereo imaging system that, in its fully deployed configuration, stands 1.8 meters above the Martian surface, and has a resolution of two millimeters at a range of two meters. The IMP has color capability provided by 24 selectable filters -- twelve filters per "eye". Its red, green, and blue filters were used to take this panorama. The three color images were first digitally balanced according to the transmittance capabilities of a specific high-definition TV device at JPL, and then enhanced via changes to saturation and intensity while retaining the hue. A threshold was applied to avoid changes to the sky. An MTF filter was applied to sharpen feature edges. At left is a Lander petal and a metallic mast which is a portion of the low-gain antenna. On the horizon the double "Twin Peaks" are visible, about 1-2 kilometers away. The rock "Couch" is the dark, curved rock at right of Twin Peaks. Another Lander petal is at left-center, showing the fully deployed forward ramp at far left, and rear ramp at right, which rover Sojourner used to descend to the surface of Mars on July 5. Immediately to the left of the rear ramp is the rock "Barnacle Bill", which scientists found to be andesitic, possibly indicating that it is a volcanic rock (a true andesite) or a physical mixture of particles. Just beyond Barnacle Bill, rover tracks lead to Sojourner, shown using its Alpha Proton X-Ray Spectrometer (APXS) instrument to study the large rock "Yogi". Yogi, low in quartz content, appears to be more primitive than Barnacle Bill, and appears more like the common basalts found on Earth. The tracks and circular pattern in the soil leading up to Yogi were part of Sojourner's soil mechanics experiments, in which varying amounts of pressure were applied to the wheels in order to determine physical properties of the soil. During its traverse to Yogi the rover stirred the soil and exposed material from several centimeters in depth. During one of the turns to deploy Sojourner's Alpha Proton X-Ray Spectrometer, the wheels dug particularly deeply and exposed white material. Spectra of this white material show it is virtually identical to the rock "Scooby Doo", and such white material may underlie much of the site. Deflated airbags are visible at the perimeter of all three Lander petals. *Image Credit*: NASA |
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All Planet Sizes
| title |
All Planet Sizes |
| description |
This illustration shows the approximate sizes of the planets relative to each other. Outward from the Sun, the planets are Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto. Jupiter's diameter is about 11 times that of the Earth's and the Sun's diameter is about 10 times Jupiter's. Pluto's diameter is slightly less than one-fifth of Earth's. The planets are not shown at the appropriate distance from the Sun. *Image Credit*: Lunar and Planetary Laboratory |
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Luna 1
| title |
Luna 1 |
| date |
01.02.1959 |
| description |
Luna 1 was the first spacecraft to reach the Moon, and the first of a series of Soviet automatic interplanetary stations successfully launched in the direction of the Moon. The spacecraft was sphere-shaped. Five antennae extended from one hemisphere. Instrument ports also protruded from the surface of the sphere. There were no propulsion systems on the Luna 1 spacecraft itself. Because of its high velocity and its announced package of various metallic emblems with the Soviet coat of arms, it was concluded that Luna 1 was intended to impact the Moon. On 2 January 1959, after reaching escape velocity, Luna 1 separated from its 1472 kg third stage. The third stage, 5.2 m long and 2.4 m in diameter, travelled along with Luna 1. On 3 January, at a distance of 113,000 km from Earth, a large (1 kg) cloud of sodium gas was released by the spacecraft. This glowing orange trail of gas, visible over the Indian Ocean with the brightness of a sixth-magnitude star, allowed astronomers to track the spacecraft. It also served as an experiment on the behavior of gas in outer space. Luna 1 passed within 5995 km of the Moon's surface on 4 January after 34 hours of flight. It went into orbit around the Sun, between the orbits of Earth and Mars. The spacecraft contained radio equipment, a tracking transmitter, and telemetering system, five different sets of scientific devices for studying interplanetary space, including a magnetometer, geiger counter, scintillation counter, and micrometeorite detector, and other equipment. The measurements obtained during this mission provided new data on the Earth's radiation belt and outer space, including the discovery that the Moon had no magnetic field and that a solar wind, a strong flow of ionized plasma emmanating from the Sun, streamed through interplanetary space. *Image Credit*: NASA |
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Mariner 3
| title |
Mariner 3 |
| date |
11.05.1964 |
| description |
Mariner 3 was a 260 kg solar-cell and battery-powered spacecraft designed to make scientific measurements in the vicinity of Mars and to obtain photographs of the planet's surface and transmit these to Earth. It was intended that the spacecraft would encounter Mars after a 325-million mile journey in a little less than 8 months. A protective shield failed to eject after the spacecraft had passed through the atmosphere. None of the instrument sensors were uncovered, and the added weight prevented the spacecraft from attaining its prescribed Mars trajectory. *Image Credit*: NASA |
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Asteroid 216 Kleopatra
| title |
Asteroid 216 Kleopatra |
| date |
05.04.2000 |
| description |
These images show several views from a radar-based computer model of asteroid 216 Kleopatra. The object, located in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, is about 217 kilometers (135 miles) long and about 94 kilometers (58 miles) wide, or about the size of New Jersey. This dog bone-shaped asteroid is an apparent leftover from an ancient, violent cosmic collision. Kleopatra is one of several dozen asteroids whose coloring suggests they contain metal. A team of astronomers observing Kleopatra used the 305-meter (1,000-foot) telescope of the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico to bounce encoded radio signals off Kleopatra. Using sophisticated computer analysis techniques, they decoded the echoes, transformed them into images, and assembled a computer model of the asteroid's shape. The images were obtained when Kleopatra was about 171 million kilometers (106 million miles) from Earth. This model is accurate to within about 15 kilometers (9 miles). *Image Credit*: NASA/JPL/Northwestern University |
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Newly Deployed Sojourner Rov
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| title |
Newly Deployed Sojourner Rover |
| description |
This 8-image mosaic was acquired during the late afternoon (near 5pm LST, note the long shadows) on Sol 2 as part of the predeploy "insurance panorama" and shows the newly deployed rover sitting on the Martian surface. This color image was generated from images acquired at 530,600, and 750 nm. The insurance panorama was designed as "insurance" against camera failure upon deployment. Had the camera failed, the losslessly-compressed, multispectral insurance panorama would have been the main source of image data from the IMP. However, the camera deployment was successful, leaving the insurance panorama to be downlinked to Earth several weeks later. Ironically enough, the insurance panorama contains some of the best quality image data because of the lossless data compression and relatively dust-free state of the camera and associated lander/rover hardware on Sol 2. Mars Pathfinder is the second in NASA's Discovery program of low-cost spacecraft with highly focused science goals. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA, developed and manages the Mars Pathfinder mission for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, D.C. JPL is an operating division of the California Institute of Technology (Caltech). The IMP was developed by the University of Arizona Lunar and Planetary Laboratory under contract to JPL. Peter Smith is the Principal investigator. *Image Credit*: NASA |
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'Yardangs' on Mars
| title |
'Yardangs' on Mars |
| description |
These images of 'yardangs', features sculpted by wind-blown sand seen here near Olympus Mons on Mars, were obtained by the High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC) on board the ESA Mars Express spacecraft. This image was taken during orbit 143 with a resolution of 20 metres per pixel. This scene shows a structure south of Olympus Mons at 60 N latitude and 2200 E longitude, which was probably formed by the action of the wind. Loose sand fragments were transported by wind, and impacted on the bedrock, slowly removing parts of the surface, like a sand-blaster. If the winds blow in the same direction for a long enough period, 'wind-lanes', as shown in the picture, can occur. On Earth, the remnants of these features which have not been eroded away are called 'yardangs'. Where the surface consists of more resistant material, the force of the wind may not be strong enough to cause this sand-blasting. This might be the reason for the three flat regions (the first in the foreground on the left, and the others top right), which measure about 17 by 9 kilometres. *Image Credit*: European Space Agency |
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Mars River Delta?
| title |
Mars River Delta? |
| description |
A high-resolution TIFF file of this image is available at http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA04869. Details in a fan-shaped deposit discovered by NASA's Mars Global Surveyor orbiter provide evidence that some ancient rivers on Mars flowed for a long time, not just in brief, intense floods. The apron of debris filling the middle of this picture from the spacecraft's Mars Orbiter Camera is a hardened and eroded distributory fan, a type of geological feature that includes river deltas and alluvial fans. Sediments transported through valleys by water on early Mars formed the 13-kilometer-long (8-mile) deposit in the distant past, when it was still possible for liquid water to flow across the martian surface. Mars Orbiter Camera team members published discovery of this feature in the online edition of the journal Science. What is important about it? First, it provides unequivocal evidence that some valleys on Mars experienced persistent flow over considerable periods of time, as rivers do on Earth. Second, because the fan is today a deposit of sedimentary rock, it demonstrates that some sedimentary rocks on Mars were deposited in a liquid environment. Third, the fan's general shape, the pattern of its channels, and its low slopes provide circumstantial evidence that the feature was an actual delta -- that is, a deposit made when a river or stream enters a body of water. If so, this landform is a strong indicator that some craters and basins on Mars once held lakes. Hundreds of other locations on Mars where valleys enter craters and basins have been imaged by the Mars Orbiter Camera, but none has shown landforms like those presented here. The picture is a mosaic of images acquired between August 2000 and September 2003. The area covered 14 kilometer (8.7 miles) by 19.3 kilometers (12 miles). North is up. Sunlight illuminates the scene from the left. The spacecraft's narrow-angle camera takes grayscale images, the color added is based on information from a camera on Mars Odyssey. The fan is in an unnamed crater that is 64 kilometers (40 miles) in diameter, at 24.3 degrees south latitude, 33.5 degrees west longitude. The crater lies northeast of a larger one named Holden Crater. The fan is a fossil landform. That is, it is an eroded remnant of a somewhat larger and thicker deposit. The originally loose sediment was turned to rock and then eroded over time to present the features seen today. The channels through which sediment was transported are no longer present. Instead, only their floors remain, and these have been elevated by erosion so that former channels now stand as ridges. The floors of former channels became inverted in this way because they were more resistant to the forces of erosion, indicating they either were more strongly cemented than surrounding materials, or they have more coarse grains (which are harder to remove), or both. *Image Credit*: NASA/JPL/Malin Space Science Systems |
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An Asteroid's Sky Trek
| title |
An Asteroid's Sky Trek |
| description |
While analyzing NASA Hubble Space Telescope images of the Sagittarius dwarf irregular galaxy (SagDIG), an international team of astronomers led by Simone Marchi, Yazan Momany, and Luigi Bedin were surprised to see the trail of a faint asteroid that had drifted across the field of view during the exposures. The trail is seen as a series of 13 reddish arcs on the right in this August 2003 Advanced Camera for Surveys image. As the Hubble telescope orbits around the Earth, and the Earth moves around the Sun, a nearby asteroid in our solar system will appear to move with respect to the vastly more distant background stars, due to an effect called parallax. It is somewhat similar to the effect you see from a moving car, in which trees by the side of the road appear to be moving much more rapidly than background objects at much larger distances. If the Hubble exposure were a continuous one, the asteroid trail would appear like a continuous wavy line. However, the exposure with Hubble's camera was actually broken up into more than a dozen separate exposures. After each exposure, the camera's shutter was closed while the image was transferred from the electronic detector into the camera's computer memory, this accounts for the many interruptions in the asteroid's trail. Since the trajectory of the Hubble spacecraft around the Earth is known very accurately, it is possible to triangulate the distance to the asteroid in a manner similar to that used by terrestrial surveyors. It turns out to be a previously unknown asteroid, located 169 million miles from Earth at the time of observation. The distance places the new object, most likely, in the main asteroid belt, lying between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. Based on the observed brightness of the asteroid, the astronomers estimate that it has a diameter of about 1.5 miles. The brightest stars in the picture (easily distinguished by the spikes radiating from their images, produced by optical effects within the telescope), are foreground stars lying within our own Milky Way galaxy. Their distances from Earth are typically a few thousand light-years. The faint, bluish SagDIG stars lie at about 3.5 million light-years (1.1 Megaparsecs) from us. Lastly, background galaxies (reddish/brown extended objects with spiral arms and halos) are located even further beyond SagDIG at several tens of millions parsecs away. There is thus a vast range of distances among the objects visible in this photo, ranging from about 169 million miles for the asteroid, up to many quadrillions of miles for the faint, small galaxies. The team reported their science findings about the asteroid in the October 2004 issue of New Astronomy. *Image Credit*: NASA, ESA, and Y. Momany (University of Padua) |
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New Gullies on Martian Sand
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| title |
New Gullies on Martian Sand Dune |
| description |
As part of extended-mission science investigation using the Mars Orbiter Camera on NASA's Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft, the camera team is re-imaging many locations where previous observations revealed gullies. The intent is to see if gully-forming processes are operating on Mars at the present time. The team has found one location where a new gully formed on a dune in an unnamed crater in the Hellespontus region of Mars, west of the Hellas Basin. This pair of narrow-angle images from the Mars Orbiter Camera shows the dune as it appeared on July 17, 2002, (left) and as it appeared on April 27, 2005, (right). The nearly three Earth years of intervening time amount to about 1.4 Mars years. During this period, a couple of gullies formed on the dune slip face. It is critical to recognize that the 2002 image was obtained at a time of year when the incident sunlight was coming in from a lower angle, relative to the horizon, than in the 2005 image. If the gullies had been present in 2002, their appearance would be sharper and more pronounced than they are in the 2005 image. The gullies simply did not exist on July 17, 2002. The steep walls of the gully alcove and channels suggests that the sand in this dune is somewhat cohesive, an observation common among martian sand dunes seen by the Mars Orbiter Camera over the past eight years. Image Credit: NASA/JPL/MSSS |
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Evidence of Martian Quakes
| title |
Evidence of Martian Quakes |
| description |
One of the many mysteries associated with martian geology is the origin of gullies found at latitudes poleward of 30 degrees latitude. Most of these gullies are found within craters or other depressions, and appear to be related to the bedrock. Several hypotheses have been proposed for their origin, including groundwater seepage and melting at the base of a dust-mantled snow pack. Some middle-latitude gullies are found on sand dunes. These gullies appear to be different from those found on the slopes of craters, but generally have been interpreted to form by similar processes. In the present martian environment, it is difficult to introduce water to the surface. The temperature and atmospheric pressure may permit water to exist, but the rate of heating of the ground and atmosphere, and the amount of energy available to warm the ground or melt snow, are not conducive to such processes. An alternative process of gully formation on these sand dunes involves frozen carbon dioxide trapped in the winter by windblown sand, then subliming rapidly enough for the escaping carbon-dioxide gas to make the sand flow as a gully-cutting fluid. As part of extended-mission science investigation using the Mars Orbiter Camera on NASA's Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft, the camera team is re-imaging many locations where previous observations revealed gullies. The intent is to see if gully-forming processes are operating on Mars at the present time. The team has found one location where a new gully formed on a dune in an unnamed crater in the Hellespontus region of Mars, west of the Hellas Basin. This pair of narrow-angle images from the Mars Orbiter Camera shows the dune as it appeared on July 17, 2002, (left) and as it appeared on April 27, 2005, (right). The nearly three Earth years of intervening time amount to about 1.4 Mars years. During this period, a couple of gullies formed on the dune slip face. It is critical to recognize that the 2002 image was obtained at a time of year when the incident sunlight was coming in from a lower angle, relative to the horizon, than in the 2005 image. If the gullies had been present in 2002, their appearance would be sharper and more pronounced than they are in the 2005 image. The gullies simply did not exist on July 17, 2002. The steep walls of the gully alcove and channels suggests that the sand in this dune is somewhat cohesive, an observation common among martian sand dunes seen by the Mars Orbiter Camera over the past eight years. Wider context for the dune is shown in a mosaic of two images from the Thermal Emission Imaging System on NASA's Mars Odyssey orbiter, encompassing the dark-toned sand dune field on the floor of a crater located near 49.8 degrees south latitude, 325.4 degrees west longitude. In this image, north is approximately up and sunlight illuminates the scene from the upper left. More information about this image can be found at: http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA04290 |
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360 Degree Panorama Mars Pat
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| Title |
360 Degree Panorama Mars Pathfinder Landing Site |
| Full Description |
This is the first contiguous, uniform 360-degree color panorama taken by the Imager for Mars Pathfinder (IMP) over the course of sols 8, 9, and 10 (Martian days). Different regions were imaged at different times over the three Martian days to acquire consistent lighting and shadow conditions for all areas of the panorama. At left is a lander petal and a metallic mast which is a portion of the low-gain antenna. On the horizon the double "Twin Peaks" are visible, about 1-2 kilometers away. The rock "Couch" is the dark, curved rock at right of Twin Peaks. Another lander petal is at left-center, showing the fully deployed forward ramp at far left, and rear ramp at right, which rover Sojourner used to descend to the surface of Mars on July 5. Immediately to the left of the rear ramp is the rock Barnacle Bill, which scientists found to be andesitic, possibly indicating that it is a volcanic rock (a true andesite) or a physical mixture of particles. Just beyond Barnacle Bill, rover tracks lead to Sojourner, shown using its Alpha Proton X-Ray Spectrometer (APXS) instrument to study the large rock Yogi. Yogi, low in quartz content, appears to be more primitive than Barnacle Bill, and appeared more like the common basalts found on Earth. The tracks and circular pattern in the soil leading up to Yogi were part of Sojourner's soil mechanics experiments, in which varying amounts of pressure were applied to the wheels in order to determine physical properties of the soil. During its traverse to Yogi the rover stirred the soil and exposed material from several centimeters in depth. During one of the turns to deploy Sojourner's Alpha Proton X-Ray Spectrometer, the wheels dug particularly deeply and exposed white material. Spectra of this white material show it is virtually identical to the rock Scooby Doo, and such white material may underlie much of the site. Deflated airbags are visible at the perimeter of all three lander petals. The IMP is a stereo imaging system with color capability provided by 24 selectable filters, twelve filters per "eye." Its red, green, and blue filters were used to take this image. The IMP, in its fully deployed configuration, stands 1.8 meters above the Martian surface, and has a resolution of two millimeters at a range of two meters. Mars Pathfinder is the second in NASA's Discovery program of low-cost spacecraft with highly focused science goals. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA, developed and manages the Mars Pathfinder mission for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, DC. JPL is an operating division of the California Institute of Technology (Caltech). The Imager for Mars Pathfinder (IMP) was developed by the University of Arizona Lunar and Planetary Laboratory under contract to JPL. Peter Smith is the Principal Investigator. |
| Date |
07/18/1997 |
| NASA Center |
Jet Propulsion Laboratory |
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Mars Climate Orbiter
| Title |
Mars Climate Orbiter |
| Full Description |
The Mars Surveyor '98 Climate Orbiter is shown here during acoustic tests that simulate launch conditions. The orbiter was to conduct a two year primary mission to profile the Martian atmosphere and map the surface. To carry out these scientific objectives, the spacecraft carried a rebuilt version of the pressure modulated infrared radiometer, lost with the Mars Observer spacecraft, and a miniaturized dual camera system the size of a pair of binoculars, provided by Malin Space Science Systems, Inc., San Diego, California. During its primary mission, the orbiter was to monitor Mars atmosphere and surface globally on a daily basis for one Martian year (two Earth years), observing the appearance and movement of atmospheric dust and water vapor, as well as characterizing seasonal changes of the planet's surface. Imaging of the surface morphology would also provide important clues about the planet's climate in its early history. The mission was part of NASA's Mars Surveyor program, a sustained program of robotic exploration of the red planet, managed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, DC. Lockheed Martin Astronautics was NASA's industrial partner in the mission. Unfortunately, Mars Climate Orbiter burned up in the Martian atmosphere on September 23, 1999, due to a metric conversion error that caused the spacecraft to be off course. |
| Date |
05/27/1998 |
| NASA Center |
Jet Propulsion Laboratory |
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Pioneer 10 Trajectory
| Title |
Pioneer 10 Trajectory |
| Full Description |
This image, drawn in 1970, is an artist's rendering of the Pioneer 10 spacecraft trajectory, with the planets labeled and a list of the instruments that were intended to be flown. Before the use of computer animation, artists were hired by JPL and NASA to depict a spacecraft in flight, for use as a visual aid to promote the project during development. Pioneer 10 was managed by NASA Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, California. The Pioneer F spacecraft, as it was known before launch, was designed and built by TRW Systems Group, Inc. JPL developed three instruments that flew on the spacecraft: Magnetic Fields, S-Band Occultation, and Celestial Mechanics, as well as running the Deep Space Network which provided tracking and data system support. Caltech was responsible for the Jovian Infrared Thermal Structure experiment. Pioneer was very successful, crossing the orbit of Mars and the asteroid belt beyond it, encountering, studying, and photographing Jupiter, then crossing the orbits of Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. It left the solar system in 1983 and has been contacted several times in the past few years. As of July 2001, the spacecraft was still able to send a return signal to Earth. At Jupiter, the experiments of Pioneer were used to examine the environmental and atmospheric characteristics of the giant planet. Pioneer was also the vital precursor to all future flights to the outer solar system. It determined that a spacecraft could safely fly through the asteroid belt. It also measured the intensity of Jupiter's radiation belt so that NASA could design future Jupiter (and other outer planets) orbiters. |
| Date |
03/07/1972 |
| NASA Center |
Jet Propulsion Laboratory |
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Solar System Montage
| Title |
Solar System Montage |
| Full Description |
This is a montage of planetary images taken by spacecraft managed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, CA. Included are (from top to bottom) images of Mercury, Venus, Earth (and Moon), Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. The spacecraft responsible for these images are as follows: the Mercury image was taken by Mariner 10, the Venus image by Magellan, the Earth image by Galileo, the Mars image by Viking, and the Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune images by Voyager. Pluto is not shown as no spacecraft has yet visited it. The inner planets (Mercury, Venus, Earth, Moon, and Mars) are roughly to scale to each other, the outer planets (Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune) are roughly to scale to each other. Actual diameters are given below: Sun 1,390,000 km Mercury 4,879 km Venus 12,104 km Earth 12,756 km Moon 3,475 km Mars 6,794 km Jupiter 142.984 km Saturn 120,536 km Uranus 51,118 km Neptune 49,528 km Pluto 2,390 km |
| Date |
04/09/1999 |
| NASA Center |
Jet Propulsion Laboratory |
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